Edinburgh Girl Fined Â£500 For Knocking Attacker Unconscious

Briefly quoting the Scotsman news report linked above: “A TERRIFIED teenage girl has been fined Â£500 for knocking unconscious a masked stranger who stalked her home from a nightclub in what lawyers have called an “exceptional” case.”

“Claire Burleigh, 19, was pounced on by Sean Docherty, 43, as she was about to open the door of her Bathgate home, Livingston Sheriff Court heard yesterday.”

The lawyers are wrong. Self defense is essentially illegal, since every effective defensive weapon is banned in Scotland. That leaves the criminals, like Sean Docherty, as a protected species. As witness the fact that Docherty’s intended victim was nicked for 500 quid, while Docherty got off with a right proper headache.